Poking around on the Web late last night, I ran across a blog that stopped me in my e-tracks. It was the journal of a London woman who had been living in her car for some nine months, yet had somehow managed to post to a blog during that time. Her story was picked up—somewhat by accident—by a New York Times journalist researching a related subject, and things just went from there. Two BBC articles and a media-award nomination later, she has a book deal with a major publisher, and, finally, a place to live that doesn't require windshield wipers. At one point, her Wandering Scribe blog was attracting somewhere on the order of 11,000 readers per week from all over the globe.

Friday, May 26, 2006

Call and Response

I feel like I have been found and hoisted up and out of this laneway by angels. Silently, continuously, one after the other after the other of them coming into the darkness this past few weeks and lifting me further out of the laneway. Ian Urbina, the New York Times journalist, who just happened to be writing an article on people living in their cars in the US, was the first. Just when I was at my lowest point, almost giving in to thoughts that things were over for me; when every step and every breath became almost a prayer, there, thousands of miles away, he wakes up one morning and decides to write an article on people living in their cars.

Anya's story is compelling, and at the same time frightening because there are so many in similar circumstances, and not everyone's story has a happy ending. But while I'm sure it isn't exactly commonplace to go from blog to book deal, the idea that it's even possible for absolutely anyone to reach out to the planet at large is intriguing to say the least. So thanks, Google, for making it possible. And thank you, Anya, for putting that possibility to such good use.